Archive: 11 posts

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In LBP, I started on a series called "War of Souls" but I didn't get very far: the limitations I encountered in npc creation and the thermometer thwarted me and my first "chapter" ended up being more like a page than a chapter. I had planned to pick up where it left off in LBP2, but I've decided instead to reboot the project and start over from scratch. I'm having some trouble mustering up the gumption to really dive into this project (so far I've got most of the costumes, a prototype weapon and a little bit of scenery and that's it), so I thought I'd post a synopsis to see if maybe some feedback on the ideas might get my creative drive going. WARNING: Extremely long post with lots of text and pictures ahead. Brevity is NOT my forte. The main character is a Lieutenant in a battalion called "The Immortals" (they've never been defeated and are darn near unstoppable) in a war between two countries that's been going on for nearly a century. The setting is a slightly futuristic yet slightly low tech kind of thing (there will be tech in the game that doesn't exist in real life, but some real life tech won't exist in the game so its a weird mix--for instance, I haven't decided yet if airplanes/helicopters will exist). There will also be a bit of a magical/fantasy twist: no fairies or orcs, but there will be some supernatural stuff afoot. http://i4.lbp.me/img/ft/414ba8d4564ec2bd13c31cc911e01dfbdcc85fd1.jpg The lieutenant and his four man squad The story starts out with the battalion finding itself on an impossible (even for them) mission to rescue a captured general. The whole thing turns out to be a setup to wipe out your battalion 'cuz they're just too good at their job (more on that in a minute) but against all odds, you succeed at the mission (a 4 man squad--hey, 4 people...that's the exact number of players you can have...what a coincidence--is sent on an infiltration mission while the rest of the battalion lures the main enemy force away from their camp and is subsequently nearly wiped out). After it comes out that you were deliberately sent in to die and that the remnants of your battalion are scheduled to meet with unfortunate "accidents," you flee, are pursued, and eventually die. Yep, die. Dead. Game over. Well, not so much, actually, because there just so happens to be a spirit world and there's a war going on there as well. In fact the war in the spirit world is the real war and the one in the real world is just a part of it. So there's the villain that has discovered that they can drain energy from souls to become more powerful and has built a whole empire built on enslaving and draining souls to feed his power. The war in the real world is just to bring in more souls for him to subjugate (all the dead get captured and the living are encouraged to have as many children as possible to keep the population up). The war has been kept even for the better part of a century with neither side able to prevail, but your pesky battalion, being so good at their job, has been upsetting the balance and turning the tide of battle in your side's favor: hence the conspiracy to eliminate them. The capitol of the empire is located right at the gates of ... I dunno'... Valhalla or something... which is kept closely guarded so that the dead can't get to it and nobody from Valhalla can get back into the rest of the spirit world to kick the empires butts. http://i4.lbp.me/img/ft/6c4d22c1056edab6ed08f2cd46cab3b5bec153c7.jpg The emperor in his physical and spirit forms--he'll be the final boss at the end of the game. Your squad ends up joining the resistance after defeating one of the empire's soul harvesters (which gets the attention of both the empire and resistance) and being rescued by ... this red chick I haven't named yet (I actually haven't thought of names for any of the characters yet). http://i3.lbp.me/img/ft/5b39f875004833c4db98fa7c87baafea1c9c145d.jpg An uber harvester from the LBP1 version of the level--he'll need a bit of redesign with lbp2 tech but will end up at least similar to this http://id.lbp.me/img/ft/50d61d5beadd023f7fd6dc634f71f2d9ec9c31c9.jpg The red dead chick, also designed in LBP1 and needing some LBP2 touch ups. This is how she'll appear in cutscenes, but there's also a sackbot of her for in-game stuff http://ic.lbp.me/img/ft/54c6bb50ee870af361286bb1763196f08e6511de.jpg The key resistance members: an ancient general who fought his way out of Valhalla through the empire's capitol to aid the resistance, the red dead chick in sackbot form, and some guy with a cool looking costume but I haven't decided exactly how he'll fit Your squad will be given the power to shift back and forth between the physical and spirit worlds (ever played Soul Reaver? It's like that) and you will have to fight in both worlds (in the physical world, both armies will be against you) to liberate one of the large soul prisons so that you can raise a large enough spirit army to assault the capitol. There will also be a living resistance and you will become the link between them and the spirit resistance. The final battle will be against the emperor, who can also shift between the physical and spirit worlds (while he draws his power from imprisoned souls, your squad gets theirs from volunteers in the resistance who give their soul energy to you). http://ie.lbp.me/img/ft/7dec6de43e65a544c6c20ead71f034eac70c5db4.jpg An assortment of soldiers from both sides. Gameplay: The game will be an action game with an emphasis on combat and infiltration (your squad will be tasked to infiltrate various places to open up the way for the rest of the army or achieve other objectives). Combat will feature a mixture of melee and projectile weapons (literally a mixture--the weapons transform on command from spear-like weapons to guns). The melee combat will be similar to the lightsabers in my Star Wars level (though I'm giving some thought to how to refine it to be better suited to fighting multiple enemies) while the ranged weapons handle pretty much like paintinators/creatinators. There will be a fair amount of platforming and probably even some puzzle solving as well (I haven't designed any of the levels yet so I'm still not sure how they'll play out exactly). In the spirit world, combat will be similar but instead of using physical weapons, you'll fight with soul energy (think the wraith blade from Soul Reaver but with the ability to shoot as well)--the weapons will handle nearly identically to the physical world weapons, just with different visuals (so that players don't need to learn two completely different styles of combat). One thing I really want to do is to ensure that the player never needs to stop playing. So instead of cutscenes, the story should unfold while the player is still playing. Some of that can be done with in-game dialogue and I'm considering using a sort of floating comic book panel type of thing for cutscenes. You'll still be able to play while the cutscene happens in comic panels above you. I may even scale the cutscenes so that if the player is in a hurry and covering a lot of ground, only the crucial scenes play (so that they'll be done before the player gets to a certain point) or so that a longer version with a bit more dialogue plays if they're just standing there watching. I want to do it this way so that players who enjoy cutscenes can just go ahead and enjoy them while those who always hit the skip button as soon as a cutscene starts don't have to miss anything too important. I'm not sure how well this will work or if it will be possible to keep the narrative flowing without ever stopping gameplay, but it's what I'm aspiring to. So that's about what I'm going for. Any thoughts on how to improve the concept or whatever are welcome. Btw, in the interest of disclosure, the idea of a soul prison with an emperor feeding off their power wasn't mine--I ripped it off from an amazing comic book called "The Red Star."

2011-07-28 02:05:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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Just read the WHOLE thing I have have to say is a pretty bad *** story from just reading it! the character look awesome and the fighting between the sprite word and the real word will be awesome! I wish you luck my friend, i hope the best for you and the level

2011-07-28 03:31:00 Author: Arnald23 Posts: 1843

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Just read the WHOLE thing I have have to say is a pretty bad *** story from just reading it! the character look awesome and the fighting between the sprite word and the real word will be awesome! I wish you luck my friend, i hope the best for you and the level lol the censoring makes our comment seem mean , I agree though great story and PERFECT costumes (except the uber-harvester, it looks unnatural with its limbs right now but a touchup should fix it) EDIT: wait not the limbs the sail sorry. EDIT: scratch that i dont know whats off about it, it's just something

2011-07-28 04:24:00 Author: koltonaugust Posts: 1382

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Are you going to make a separate 'story so far' level, since a movie showcasing how this all came about would be awesome. Also, I agree with kolton, something is off about that harvester. Could be that the limbs mesh with the tattered sail. Could you cover up the joint? I think that'd solve the issue, though like said, I dunno what exactly makes it so odd.

2011-07-28 04:44:00 Author: SSTAGG1 Posts: 1136

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Wow amazing idea. Cool costumes and characters this should be good if you can do it. How would you do the whole transitioning from real world to spirit world? I think the arms and sail on the harvester should go it would look better as a squid monster thing.

2011-07-28 05:06:00 Author: Lordwarblade Posts: 761

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Thanks for the encouragement everybody. I'm pretty pleased with most of the costumes (wish the red dead chick had a better dress) and I'll take a look at the uber harvester. In the original, he was reaching out to you as part of the story, hence the arms. Since all characters will likely now be sackbots and the harvesters will just be monsters, I can definitely give him a redesign and I'll drop the arms. Wow amazing idea. Cool costumes and characters this should be good if you can do it. How would you do the whole transitioning from real world to spirit world?. In the original, the lighting and color correction changed so that everything was bluish. That color option isn't available in LBP2 except in LBP1 levels running in backwards compatibility and even then it doesn't look as good as it did (the fire stays orange in LBP2 but it turned blue in LBP2). Also, parts or the terrain and scenery shifted around a little: platforms would be higher or lower and some things would be on a tilt that weren't tilted in the physical world. The shift only happened once in the original when you died (I didn't make it far enough into the story for you to get the power to shift back and forth). In the new one, I'll probably add blue fog, lower the lighting a bit and such. I'm playing around with some background scenery--making my own sky using dim blue neon. If I can get the neon background looking good enough, it'll be simple to change its color on the fly when you shift. There's still a bit I need to work out, though. It all makes sense in one-player: if you die in the physical world, you immediately shift to the spirit or you can just push the shift button to do it without dying. The problem arises when you have multiple players. Do I wait for all of them to die before the shift? Half of them? Do I set it to vs, build the level twice and have the dead ones go to one version while the live ones stay in the other?--That would only work for online multiplayer, not for people on the same console, so it's pretty much a no go and besides, I'd run out of thermo faster if I had to build everything twice. And no, making it 1p only is not an option--I hate 1p only levels. Maybe I could give the group a collective hp bar and when that runs out, they'd shift--I think I like that idea actually. Of course that still leaves the problem of how players deliberately shift. If one person pushes the shift button, should that force the shift, or should two or more players need to agree to shift? I'm not sure what'll happen when you die in the spirit world. I mean you're already a ghost, so what... you become a ghost of a ghost? According to the story, when you die you temporarily become a sort of ghost of a ghost (basically just a weakened and helpless spirit--you don't actually die so much as your spirit energy is drained), which is what the bad guys are trying to do to people so they can capture them, but I can't have the players get captured every time they run out of health, so I guess a checkpoint system is in order for the spirit world. I'll have to give it some thought. Are you going to make a separate 'story so far' level, since a movie showcasing how this all came about would be awesome. Most of the story will happen during the game. Basically all that needs to be set up at the beginning is that the war has been going on for nearly a century with no end in sight, and that your battalion found itself ridiculously outnumbered on its rescue mission due to bad intel (you don't find out that the intel was deliberately bad until later) and that your squad has been sent on the infiltration mission. Everything else unfolds after that so I don't think a story-so-far level is necessary. I think I'll have a brief intro with voice-over setting up the background, followed by a title and then drop the player(s) into the gameplay while a comic-cutscene/flashback plays out with the colonel giving their orders. Ideally it should be less than 30 seconds from when the level loads to when you get control of the players. I may even make the voice over and title happen in-game too so that you can get right to it.

2011-07-28 06:15:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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Hmm, I'll try to think of a way both realms could be done without causing MP issues. Maybe just have 4 different lighting modes. Depending on how many players are in each realm, it determines how the lighting/effects change. Say all 4 are in the living realm, then perfectly normal. 1 ghost, add some mist... 4 ghosts, make it blurry, and everything has indistinct outlines (dunno how to do this though). This would mean you'd need both realms in the same location, which could cause some issues depending on what happens in each realm.

2011-07-28 06:27:00 Author: SSTAGG1 Posts: 1136

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Maybe just have 4 different lighting modes... This would mean you'd need both realms in the same location, which could cause some issues depending on what happens in each realm. Interesting idea. It would be really difficult to pull off, though. The physical and spirit worlds aren't meant to be able to directly interact with each other, so players who are dead can't shoot living enemies and vise-versa. There's not much difference between the players' costumes when they're physical or spirit: just glowing eyes for spirit and normal eyes for physical, so it'd be easy for players to get confused whether they're physical/spirit. I think I'll have to keep it so that all players are in one realm or the other at the same time. That should be fine with the communal health bar, and for shifting I'll need to set it so that any player can trigger the shift, or only player one can trigger it (I'd rather avoid that--I don't want players 2-4 being second rate characters), or two or more have to trigger it (when one player wants to shift, they hold down the button and some sort of indicator such as a light comes on and if another player pushes the button at the same time, they shift). Another thing that I'm not sure how I want to handle is the players/characters. If it's just one player, then you would just play as the lieutenant, but if there's two or more, should I allow them to trade characters if they want? If you're the only girl playing and you get the big guy while some other dude plays the girl, wouldn't you want to trade? Should I allow players to change their bot on the fly if there are fewer than four players--you're playing as the lieutenant but you want to be the big guy, so you just push a button a couple of times to switch to him? Also, do I want to give the different characters special abilities? The big guy--bigger/more powerful gun but a slower walking speed? The girl--quicker movement but smaller/less powerful weapons? Another thing I would like to try is to have the levels actually scale themselves in some ways to the number of players. Instead of having 2x areas, certain parts would change to 2x areas if two or more players are detected. More/tougher enemies when there are more players.

2011-07-28 07:01:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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Another thing that I'm not sure how I want to handle is the players/characters. If it's just one player, then you would just play as the lieutenant, but if there's two or more, should I allow them to trade characters if they want? If you're the only girl playing and you get the big guy while some other dude plays the girl, wouldn't you want to trade? Should I allow players to change their bot on the fly if there are fewer than four players--you're playing as the lieutenant but you want to be the big guy, so you just push a button a couple of times to switch to him? Also, do I want to give the different characters special abilities? The big guy--bigger/more powerful gun but a slower walking speed? The girl--quicker movement but smaller/less powerful weapons? It may just be easier to have a character select at the start that way each player can choose who they want easier. You could always have two versions of each character a male and female so that depending on who is playing the story will be slightly different. Lets say three girls and one boy play then they could choose any character they wanted but choose the characters sex so the boy could choose the lieutenant and one of the girls could choose the big guy but the female equivalent. Some girls love big guns. Just an idea but what if the shifting was done with a time limit. Meaning the players themselves wont be able to manually shift, it just happens now and again it would be great for strategy based puzzles or situations were being either physical or spirit could be dangerous it would add a lot of thinking to the level. Not sure about this really.

2011-07-28 08:20:00 Author: Lordwarblade Posts: 761

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It may just be easier to have a character select at the start that way each player can choose who they want easier. You could always have two versions of each character a male and female so that depending on who is playing the story will be slightly different. Two problems: I'm planning on the game being fully voiced over with voices for each character--twice the genders means twice the voices; and adding a character select means delaying the action that much more. I enjoy a good story level, but when I play a community level, in the first minute or so, it's on trial status to see if it keeps me interested enough to keep playing. A character select screen doesn't necessarily ruin it for me but it certainly doesn't help. I want people to be excited right from the get-go and any menus will diminish that. Just an idea but what if the shifting was done with a time limit. Meaning the players themselves wont be able to manually shift, it just happens now and again it would be great for strategy based puzzles or situations were being either physical or spirit could be dangerous it would add a lot of thinking to the level. Not sure about this really. Hm. That doesn't really fit: the idea is that they have the power to shift back and forth at will (well, shifting to the physical world will take a bit of effort, but shifting to the spirit world is at will). On the other hand, it could be said that maintaining a presence in the physical world requires energy and if it runs out, you go back, so the time limit could be made to make sense story-wise. Unless implementing a time limit could be set up so that it makes the game more fun, then I wouldn't want to do it, though. To me, being in control is fun, so I'd rather have the control than to have a time limit imposed on me. I think I'll end up setting it up so that two or more players have to hold down the shift button to shift--when one player holds down the button, they'll glow and maybe give off some blue smoke or something so that everybody else can tell that they want to shift. Blue smoke 'cuz the spirit world is gonna' be bluish colored and the smoke is like ghosty or something... and it's a visual effect that won't get in the way or break the immersion. It's amazing how much more trouble it is to figure everything out when multiple players are involved. I'm beginning to understand why some people limit levels to single player... but I still consider a level with a one player limit to be broken (with the exception of weird levels like the pseudo-3d levels that couldn't possibly done with two players). I also like to set up versus levels so that a single player can still play and have fun, but that's just personal taste. [edit] There will likely be times when being physical or spirit is extra dangerous or where one is needed to solve a puzzle. For example, you could go spirit to slip past some guards, or you could go physical to escape a bunch of spirit monsters. Story-wise, the spirits ought to be able to see the physical world, but I don't know how I would implement that for the players. There's no way that I know of to "ghost" a sackbot so there's no way to make npcs in the physical world visible in the spirit world.

2011-07-28 09:42:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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I was wondering if anybody here has played my level Star Wars: Jedi Arts (http://lbp.me/v/xzbrgn) and has any ideas on possible tweaks that could be made to the melee combat to make it more of something that would be used in a campaign type level (as I've mentioned, the lightsabers from that level were really a test for the type of combat I want to put into War of Souls). As it currently plays, there is a bit of technique to it, but it often comes down to luck whether you win or lose a saber duel and I'd like to shift it more to the skill/technique side a bit. Any thoughts. Yes, this is a double post, but they're three days apart and I'm adding at least a little something new, so it's allowed.

2011-07-31 19:37:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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