A fractal algorithm to create a seamless, planet-sized game world, featuring both cities and open countryside, with GTA-style local-level gameplay set against a greater goal of breaking free from some form of opressive regime.

A fractal algorithm to create a seamless, planet-sized game world, featuring both cities and open countryside, with GTA-style local-level gameplay set against a greater goal of breaking free from some form of opressive regime.

...and you're invisible. In space!

This is nice

The newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.development quite often discusses random world creation - I believe there was quite an involved discussion about creating vast realistic random worlds a year or so ago. In fact, they've discuss most forms of randomly-generated gameplay at one time or another. Don't know if it'd be any use to you, mind.

Now to just rewrite it all again because I decided I don't like the quadtree approach

Now to just rewrite it all again because I decided I don't like the quadtree approach

No, no, no. It's Saturday 5th March now.... you must start a new project for today

The newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.development quite often discusses random world creation - I believe there was quite an involved discussion about creating vast realistic random worlds a year or so ago. In fact, they've discuss most forms of randomly-generated gameplay at one time or another. Don't know if it'd be any use to you, mind.

Can't find any obvious threads about it

The basic premise of the game will be GTA + near-infinite size world + vague storyline. It'll be a top-down semi-3D arcadey affair like GTA 1&2, so the only real points it shares with a roguelike are the random world and vague storyline.

Current status is that I've rewritten my perlin noise generator so it doesn't hog memory, and am in the process of rewriting it again () to get lots of speed out of it. I have a rough plan on how the world generation will work, but ensureing the roads and rivers are in sensible places could be tricky. At the moment though I'm aiming towards a desert wasteland setting, so there won't be many rivers and there will be few obstacles for the roads to avoid.

(which should really have nicer URLs)

There's definitely some random plot stuff, quite recently, but you probably don't need anything that complicated if you're going for a GTA-type storyline.

An unwinnable game?

An unwinnable game?

Elite can be won

Cheers,
Rich.

it goes on forever, with no perceptible difference to any other point in the game.

To win a game, you need a victorious finishing point: a final battle or a place to move towards.*

So if you want an unwinnable game that isn't a continuation, you going to have to kill them off somehow, no matter what they do. The only way for you to make sure someone dies is a) kill them when they reach a certain point, in which case they've "won", as they've reached the end point of the game (the only difference is the tone of the end FMV/message), or b) put in a hard limit on the time spent playing, in which case what's the point of the game if you can't find a cure/safety/whatever? It's ultimately a pointless endeavour. You can't even say "I lasted longest", as it's a hard time limit. Speed players can move further, but it's an infinite landscape, plus it rewards players that don't get involved in anything other than moving foward. How are you going to convince me, as a consumer, that there's a point in me handing over my cash?

It's the goals along the way that give us our little victories.

Make my life worth living, dammit!

Someone tell me what game to write!

Someone tell me what game to write!

What happened to Dark Matter?

it goes on forever, with no perceptible difference to any other point in the game.

...until you die. Since there's no real winning condition, the winning condition will form itself from the negation of the losing condition - so as long as you're alive you'll have won.

It's the goals along the way that give us our little victories.

See, even you agree that you can win at elite

Make my life worth living, dammit!

If everything goes right, the game will feature frantic battles with lots of enemies that will push you to your limits. The further you go into the game, the harder it will push you. This is what makes games fun

Cheers,
Rich.

Sounds more like "haven't lost yet".

If everything goes right, the game will feature frantic battles with lots of enemies that will push you to your limits. The further you go into the game, the harder it will push you. This is what makes games fun

Now that's more like it!

Sounds more like "haven't lost yet".

Yes, that's the definition of winning that I used. Different people classify winning as different things - surely if you've got a fully upgraded ship, lots of cash, Elite status, and completed all the missions you'll have won the game? It obviously hasn't beaten you, so you can't have lost, and there's nothing left to do that will pose much of a problem to you.

The only problem with games like that is that you'll need something to hook the players onto it with, so that they have time to get used to how to deal with the seemingly never ending waves of enemies that attack them. Otherwise they'll just conclude that the game is too hard and go play something else

Cheers,
Rich.

Elite did have missions that you could succeed in, giving some sense of victory - just not in the Electron version, which is what I had. We had to make our own fun in those days

Hmm, perhaps I should just scrap my big plans and bolt a game onto the engine that I have now. Although there's still the feeling that if I could get the design finished then the game would be capable of a lot more, even if I cut a few of the features....